Semantic memory in developmental amnesia

Patients with developmental amnesia resulting from bilateral hippocampal atrophy associated with neonatal hypoxia-ischaemia typically show relatively preserved semantic memory and factual knowledge about the natural world despite severe impairments in episodic memory. Understanding the neural and mnemonic processes that enable this context-free semantic knowledge to be acquired throughout development without the support of the contextualised episodic memory system is a serious challenge. This review describes the clinical presentation of patients with developmental amnesia, contrasts its features with those reported for adult-onset hippocampal amnesia, and analyses the effects of variables that influence the learning of new semantic information.